Cowboy Take Me Away (32 page)

And there it was, in glowing lights. Ninety-one.

The crowd went wild, the roar so loud the rafters creaked. The exhilaration that surged through Luke at that moment was unlike anything he’d ever felt before, but it had nothing to do with the applause of all those people watching he didn’t even know.

There was only one person he wanted to see.

He turned to the stands. Scanned the crowd. He sifted through hundreds of people, and when he finally met Shannon’s eyes, she threw her arms up in a jubilant gesture, shouting with joy. She pushed her way through the masses, dodging people left and right, trying desperately to make her way down to the arena floor. Luke took off running toward her. With no other way to get to him, she finally climbed over the railing. He caught her on the way down, sweeping her into his arms for a triumphant kiss.

Later, after the prizes were awarded, the crowd left the arena, and the lights went out, Luke felt the bittersweet realization that his career was over. Then he looked at Shannon and knew something better was waiting for him. He was going to have the life he’d always wanted with the woman who would love him forever, and to start living it, there was only one thing he had to do.

Go home, and home was Rainbow Valley.

A
s Marc Cordero went down the elevator of San Jacinto Hall to get Angela’s last box from the car, he wondered where along the way he’d lost his mind. He should have insisted she go to a smaller school. Or maybe to junior college for a year or two. Hell, he should have locked her in her bedroom and thrown away the key so he’d never have to deal with any of this.

The University of Texas had sounded so safe and civilized when the college counselor at her high school had talked about it, and when he and Angela visited the campus, it had seemed relatively tame. Of course, that had been during the summer session, when only a fraction of the place was occupied.

Neither of those things had prepared Marc for the chaos of move-in day.

The madness had actually begun an hour ago, twenty miles from Austin, where they’d crept along the highway for what seemed like forever. Marc had sworn there had to be a five-car pileup ahead, but Angela said it was just a traffic jam caused by students heading to UT.

Unbelievable.

The moment the campus came into view, Marc got a sick, sinking sensation in his stomach. Lack of control always did that to him, and dropping his daughter off at this place was making him feel more out of control than he had for the past eighteen years, and that was saying a lot. Angela, on the other hand, took one look at the campus and her face lit up exactly the way it had when she was six years old and saw the Magic Kingdom for the first time.

Six years old. Magic Kingdom. Where the hell had the time gone?

Marc grabbed the last box from his truck and headed back into the building, sidestepping one person after another, feeling as if he was navigating a sidewalk in Shanghai. A few minutes later, he got off the elevator and headed down the hall to the twelve-by-sixteen space Angela was sharing with a girl from Lubbock who’d also taken potluck on a roommate. They seemed to get along well already, which he guessed was a good thing, except the girl had a tattoo of some Chinese symbol on her upper arm, a ring through her nose, and frizzy hair dyed death-black.

Angela lifted her arms to put a framed photo onto the top shelf of her bookcase, hiking up her shirt. It was one of those midriff things she wore with jeans slung an inch below her belly button, which was pierced with a silver ring. God in heaven—why had he given in on that?

Because she’d begged for weeks, driving him crazy until he’d finally told her she could pierce anything she could cover up later for a job interview. Then he’d read something in one of her magazines about labia piercing, and that’s when he’d known for a fact that this parenthood thing had gotten totally out of control and he didn’t stand a chance anymore.

“Where do you want this?” Marc asked.

“On the dresser,” Angela said.

He set the box down and turned back, brushing his hands together, but before he could ask Angela if she needed any help unpacking or maybe hanging some stuff on the walls, she said, “I’ll walk you back downstairs.”

Marc wasn’t ready for this. He was even more not ready than he imagined he’d be. “Uh…okay.” He turned to Angela’s roommate. “It was nice to meet you.”

“Nice to meet you, too, Mr. Cordero,” the girl said with a smile, but her eyes said,
Now go away.

Marc and Angela walked back to the elevator lobby. The elevator doors opened, and three boys got off. As they passed by, one of them eyed Angela with too much interest, a hulking jock type who looked as if he was itching for another notch on his bedpost.

“What are you looking at?” Marc growled.

The kid stopped. Swallowed hard. “Uh…nothing, sir.”

“That’s right. You’re looking at nothing. And nothing is over
there
. My daughter is over
here
, and she’s
not
nothing. So if you’re looking at nothing, you’re not looking at her. Are we clear on that?”

The kid’s eyes were big as searchlights. “Yes, sir.”

“Now, beat it,” Marc snapped.

As the kid hurried off with his buddies, Angela spun on Marc, looking horrified. “Dad! Why did you
do
that?”

“Nothing’s changed just because you’re here and I’m in Rainbow Valley,” he said, striding onto the elevator. “No dumb jock just looking to get laid is going to mess with you.”

“So what are you going to do?” Angela said, following him onto the elevator. “Drive an hour so you can kick his ass?”

“Don’t think I won’t.”

She stabbed the button for the first floor. “I can’t believe you don’t trust me.”

“I trust you. It’s guys like
him
I don’t trust.”

“Could you embarrass me any more, Dad?” she said, throwing her arms into the air. “Huh? Is it even
possible
?”

Didn’t she get it by now? He just wanted her to be safe. But in this place…good God. He saw danger around every corner. Why didn’t she?

Right about then, their tiny little town seemed like a 1950s sitcom set in comparison. Everybody knew everybody else in Rainbow Valley, so kids knew if they got out of line, word would eventually get back to somebody who would shove them back in. Marc had always been able to intimidate Angela’s boyfriends with a frown, a gruff voice, and a few subtle words of warning. In fact, there had been times when he swore he was smiling but Angela told him he still looked pissed. That was fine with him if it meant boys kept their distance. But what was he supposed to do now? Could he make sure they didn’t mess with his daughter when he was an hour away in Rainbow Valley?

The problem was that he knew what teenage boys were like because he’d been one. Things could happen that you never expected and certainly weren’t ready to deal with. It was funny how after all these years he could barely remember what Nicole looked like, only that he’d been crazy in love with her and teenage sex had seemed like a wondrous gift from God.

Then came Angela.

Three months after that, Nicole was gone. Couldn’t handle being a mother. As if Marc had been any more prepared to be a father.

In the years that followed, he’d felt as if he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. Angela’s childhood seemed like nothing but a blur in his mind right now. Then came the god-awful early teenage years, with hormones running rampant and all that shouting and door slamming, making him feel as if he was doing everything wrong and she’d be rolling her eyes at him for the rest of their lives.

But the older she got, the more things leveled out, until it looked as if the sleepless nights and the constant worry and the occasional heartache were giving way to the kind of warm, comfortable relationship he’d always wanted them to have. And as he looked at his daughter now, skimpy shirt and all, he thought maybe he’d done a pretty damned good job of raising her.

“You’re right,” Marc said as the elevator doors opened on the first floor. “I shouldn’t have embarrassed you. You’re not a kid anymore. I know you can take care of yourself.”

Those words came harder to him than anything else, because he wasn’t sure he believed them. He knew he’d better believe them, though, if he expected to get any sleep for the next four years.

Angela gave him a little shrug. “It’s okay. That guy looked like a jerk, anyway.”

That was Angela. So forgiving. Sometimes a little too forgiving. He wanted to shout at her:
Don’t excuse bad behavior from any guy!
But if she hadn’t learned that lesson already, was repeating it now going to make any difference?

As they walked to his car, Marc dreaded every step he took more than the one before it. He clicked open his door with the remote, then turned back to Angela.

“Do you want me to stay for a while? Maybe take you and your new roommate to get a bite to eat?”

Angela looked back over her shoulder. “Uh…”

Marc held up his hand. “Never mind. You already have plans.”

“It’s just that Kim and I thought we’d go over to the Texas Union and check things out a little. Just to see what’s going on. You know.”

Silence.

“I don’t like missing harvest this year,” Angela said.

“You hate harvest.”

“Yeah, I know,” she said with a little shrug, folding her arms and staring down at her blue-frosted toenails. “But it’s all hands on deck, you know?”

Marc felt a stab of remembrance. That was what he’d told her from the time she was old enough to pull grapes off of vines.
At this vineyard, everybody pulls his weight. And that goes double if your name is Cordero.

“Uncle Daniel is coming back,” Marc said. “He’s going to help. We’ll get it done.”

She nodded, then smiled briefly. “Do you remember the time when I was seven and I ate ninety-two Tempranillo grapes?”

That felt like a hundred years ago. Had it really been only ten? “I was thrilled you could count that high.”

“Purple puke isn’t pretty, is it?”

“Not in the least.”

“Why didn’t you stop me?”

“Because experience is the best teacher.”

Angela looked over her shoulder at the sea of students, then back at Marc. “Then maybe I’d better go experience some stuff, huh?”

This is it. It’s time for you to go, old man. So go.

“Call me if you need anything,” he told Angela.

“I will.”

“Or even if you don’t.”

She nodded. For a few seconds, neither one of them spoke. Then Angela’s face crumpled. She took a step forward and wound her arms around his neck in a desperate hug. Suddenly she was six years old again, with her little hands holding on tightly because of a bad dream or a scraped knee, or sometimes just because he’d been twice as important to her because he was Dad and Mom all rolled into one. As he held her tightly, she whispered, “I love you, Dad,” into his ear, and he whispered that he loved her, too.

Finally she pulled away, sniffing a little. He opened the car door and got inside. She took a few steps back from the curb and wiped tears from her eyes. As Marc started the car, he was pretty sure he was going to cry, too, and he hadn’t done that since he was seven years old.

No. Get yourself together. This is a good thing. For the first time in eighteen years, your life is your own.

He put the car in gear. Angela waved good-bye, and he waved back. As he drove away, he glanced in his rearview mirror to see her turn around and walk away from him and into her new life.

It was time for him to do the same.

By the time he was heading back toward Rainbow Valley, he was ticking off all the reasons why this new chapter in his life was going to be a good thing. But before he could change his life completely, he had to get through harvest. Daniel would be there in a week or so to help out. That had been their agreement. As soon as Angela was in college, Daniel would come back to Cordero Vineyards, assume responsibility for the family business, and carry on the tradition Marc had guarded all these years. Once his brother took over, Marc intended to hop on the Harley he’d spent the past several months restoring and hit the open road. Where he’d go, he didn’t know. That was the most amazing feeling of all.
He didn’t know.
To have his whole life ahead of him virtually unscripted was something he couldn’t have imagined when he’d changed his first diaper eighteen years ago.

To kick things off, at eight o’clock tonight he intended to jump headfirst into the life of bachelorhood that being a father at seventeen had never allowed him to live. He was going to sit in his brand new La-Z-Boy recliner in front of the 60-inch LED TV he’d bought last weekend and watch a preseason football game. But first he was going to stop at the Pic ’N Go and buy as much junk food as he could get his hands on, crap he rarely kept in the house because parents who put sugar and trans fats in front of their kids these days were evidently going to hell. But if he chose to get a little diabetes and heart disease himself, that was his business. And, by God, he was buying a six-pack of beer. Heresy for a winemaker, but sometimes a man just had to have a cold one.

It wasn’t as if he hadn’t watched a ball game in the past eighteen years, but tonight was different. He didn’t have to worry that Angela was out with friends and she hadn’t come home yet, or that he’d turn around to see an army of teenagers traipsing through his house, or that he needed to put a decent dinner on the table for his kid so the Food Police didn’t come after him. Tonight it was just him alone in the house with no responsibility for anyone but himself, with nothing to do except cheer on the Cowboys and clog his arteries. And he was going to make the most of it.

Then he thought about Angela and felt a flicker of worry, along with an empty spot inside him that came from missing her already. He thought about calling her, then thought again.
You taught her right. Now let her live her own life, and you live yours.

It was still a few hours until kickoff. He looked at the horizon, where dark clouds churned against a gray sky. Even though a heavy rainstorm was predicted, he’d be home before it hit. In his recliner. In front of his television. Living it up. Rain or no rain, nothing was going to screw up his good mood tonight.

Absolutely nothing.

He was only thirty-six years old. He’d paid his dues. Now it was his turn. As of tonight, he was starting a whole new life.

Marc checked his watch. It was almost eight. He took the jar of gooey fake cheese crap he’d microwaved and poured it over the tortilla chips, then threw a handful of jalapeño slices on top.
Ah.
Food of the gods.

He stuck a package of Double Stuf Oreos under one arm, then picked up the nachos and a beer and headed into the living room. He put the food on the end table and collapsed in his recliner, tipping it back to maximum comfort level with his feet up and his head on the pillowy back rest. Then he reached for the remote and turned on the game.

Outside the rain came down in buckets. Thunder boomed. Lightning crashed. And Marc couldn’t have cared less, because he was inside this house where it was warm and dry, and tonight, right there in his living room, the Cowboys were going to beat the daylights out of the Steelers.

To complete the picture of total decadence, Brandy lay on the rug at his feet. He’d given her way too many of her favorite dog treats, and now she was lying upside down, asleep and snoring, her bushy golden retriever tail flicking back and forth as she dreamed of chasing rabbits through the vineyard. Marc took a long drink of beer and let out a satisfied sigh. Life didn’t get any better than this.